Pants on Fire

It has occurred to me just how much I lie to my children.

The other day Daisy showed me a lovely smooth, round, flat, pebble she found at the beach.  'Did you squash that pebble?' I asked. She looked at it, perplexed.  'How did it get so flat?' I said. 'You must have stood on it and squashed it.' Again she looked at the pebble, turning it around in her hands, mystified. 'I didn't do it!' she replied in defence. 'Maybe a dinosaur squashed it' I replied.

Later, I told another porkie pie.  'Murray Wiggle is coming for dinner on Sunday' I said. The kids were beside themselves with excitement. 'Can I do colouring in with Murray?  Can I do ballet for Murray? Can Murray read me a story?' 'Absolutely!' I replied. ('Murray' is actually my friend Gary who has that Wiggle-ish, slightly manic exuberance of a puppy who's just gulped down a large bowl of red cordial. He even looks a bit like Murray.  In fact if Murray were to break a leg, Gary could slip into the red skivvy and nobody would even notice.)

Life is peppered with little white lies to our offspring. I'm not talking about serious boy-who-cried-wolf lies with consequences but we do tell them a lot of stuff which is, frankly, bullshiz.  There's the traditional Santa, Easter Bunny and tooth fairy fables.  The old 'too much TV will give you square eyes' and 'eating your crusts will make your hair go curly' tales. My many regular porkies include; 'sorry, the toy shop's closed today', 'eat up your magic fairy trees' and my current seasonal favourite, 'right, I'm going to have to call Santa!'

I adore my little monkeys. But let's face it, sometimes this parenting malarkey gets a little dull and repetitive with all that bum wiping and tripping over Matchbox cars. I call this making stuff up 'situational creative embellishment'.  I like to have a little chuckle on the inside.  And kids are really gullible.

But where do we draw the line between fantasy fiction and fodder for therapy?  Could all this making stuff up be screwing them up?   Is it beyond hypocrisy to preach to your kid 'every time you tell a lie, a fairy dies'? Are the kids scarred for life because 'Murray Wiggle' turned up with frightening Movember mutton chops that were more Chopper Reed than Hot Potato?

There are lies, damned lies and then there are statistics. According to Wiki Answers:

• 12% of adults admit to telling lies "sometimes" or "often". (Presumably the other 88% were lying when they answered that question.)
• The profession with the highest number of liars is teaching. (Gullible kids, why wouldn't you?)
• The most dishonest time of day is between 9 and 9:30 in the evening, with the early hours of the morning most likely to reveal the truth. (In vino veritas perhaps?)
• Australians are the most honest people in the world, followed closely by Norwegians, Swedes and Belgians.
  
• The most profligate liar in history was US president Richard Nixon, who researchers found to have lied on record 837 times on a single day. (Politicians lying? Who would have thought?)

Fascinating stuff.  And that's no lie.

Worrying Stuff...

My daughter, Daisy, is a worrier.  She is descendant from a long line of worriers, hypochondriacs, catastrophisers and grey-haired predictors of doom.  I worry about how much she worries.

In the car this afternoon she announces 'I am not going to have any babies ever mummy!' 'Why not?' I ask. 'Because I don't ever want a needle ever again' she replies.  (The injection phobia is warranted given she was simultaneously jabbed in both arms in the name of community disease prevention yesterday.) 'But,' I say, 'by the time you're old enough to have babies, you won't be scared of needles any more.'  Which got me thinking about all the things I used to worry about and assumed I would just grow out of. 

When I was a child I was a champion worrier.  I vividly recall losing sleep over a broad range of issues and concerns including World War Three, depression (of the fiscal variety), my parents divorcing, my parents dying, bushfires, acne, being struck by lightening, catching AIDS and losing my beloved soft toy panda.

I also spent a large part of my tweenage years worrying about the dog dying.  However, I calculated that if the dog (a mad Golden Retriever named Jacko) lived to an average age, say, 14-15 years, by the time he carked it I would be at least 24 and by then I would be old enough to cope with the loss. He died when I was 21 and backpacking in Laos.  I was mortified but at least I was old enough to douse my sorrows with Mekong whiskey. 

Sadly, maturity has not brought an end to anxiety and I'm still a world-class worrier. In fact I'm worse since having kids, which gives birth to a whole new set of worries (cot-death, kidnapping, head lice) and the invention of Google (who needs to seek advice from a qualified medical professional when Dr Google is there to tell you that you've probably got cancer or worse?)

According to some bloke called Thomas Kepler, on average 40% of the things we worry about is stuff that will never happen,  30% of worries are about things that have already happened 12% are about others' opinions while 10% are needless health worries. Which makes only 8% of our worries worth worrying about.  Now that's a worrying statistic.

The Dalai Lama says:  “If there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry. And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.”  Wise words from the Buddhist Big Cheese.

My mantra of the week comes courtesy of Bobby McFerrin.

'Don't worry, be happy.'

Do do do do do di do di do di do di do...